Bookish Calendar: On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand (or rather a seat!)

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks decided that enough was enough. When she was asked to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus so that a white person might sit down, she refused. For this crime she was imprisoned, and because of what happened on that bus, the leaders of the Montgomery civil rights movement decided to stage a bus boycott, which lasted for more than a year.

I recently read a wonderful picture book about the bus that Rosa rode on that fateful day, and about the pivotal role that it played in the civil rights movement. Here is my review.

Rosa’s Bus: The ride to Civil Rights

Jo S. Kittinger

Illustrated by Steven Walker

Nonfiction picture book

Ages 6 to 8

Boyds Mills Press, 2010, 978-1-59078-722-9

   Bus #2857 rolled off the General Motors assembly line in 1948. It carried people around Terra Haute, Indiana for a few years, and then it was taken south to Montgomery in Alabama in 1954. In this city, the bus acquired something new. A sign was put in place ten seats back from the front of the bus. The new sign read: Colored, and it meant that African American passengers could only sit at the back of the bus.

   If you were white you got onto the bus, paid your dime, and sat in one of the front seats. If you were African American, you got on the bus, paid your dime, got off, and got back on using the rear door of the bus so that you could sit in one of the rear seats. It did not matter if you were old and frail or if it was raining and cold. If you were “colored” this is what you had to do. If the white seats filled up, a whole row of African American passengers had to give up their seats because African Americans could not share a row with white people. “That’s just the way things were.”

   Then, on the evening of December 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks got onto bus #2857 and she took a seat behind the Colored sign. At the next stop, all the seats for the white folks filled up, and the bus driver told Rosa and the other passengers in her row to get up so that a white man could sit down. The other African American passengers did as they were told, but Rosa refused to do so. She was arrested, and soon afterwards the Montgomery bus boycott began.

   The story of Rosa Parks’ actions on that famous day in 1955 has been told many times, but never in this way. The author tells the story from the point of view of the bus that carried Rosa Parks on that winter’s day. Readers will learn that Rosa’s bus did not end up on a scrap heap. Instead, it was saved so that future generations could see the bus that witnessed an event that helped to shape America’s history.

   Throughout this book, warm illustrations compliment the lyrical text. At the back of the book the author provides her readers with further information about bus #2857, about the events that led up to Rosa Parks’ brave stand, and about what happened after Rosa was arrested.

You can read about more Rosa Parks books on the TTLG Rosa Parks feature page.

Anniversaries - Louisa May Alcott and C.S. Lewis

On this day in 1832 Louisa May Alcott was born. Louisa May was an American novelist who is best known for her novel Little Women, which is set in the Alcott family home in Massachusetts. Little Women was loosely based on Louisa's childhood experiences with her three sisters, and it was published in 1868. I have reviewed a wonderful biography about Louis May Alcott which is called Beyond Little Women: A Story About Louisa May Alcott and you can also read my reviews of the four Little Women books on the Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews website


Sixty-six years after the birth of Louisa May Alcott, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland on November 29, 1898. Commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings.” According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England.” His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

In 1956, he married the American writer Joy Gresham, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45.

Lewis died three years after his wife, as the result of renal failure. His death came one week before his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal, as he died on 22 November 1963 – the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the same day another famous author, Aldous Huxley, died.

Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularized on stage, TV, radio and cinema.

Anniversaries - Louisa May Alcott and C.S. Lewis

On this day in 1832 Louisa May Alcott was born. Louisa May was an American novelist who is best known for her novel Little Women, which is set in the Alcott family home in Massachusetts. Little Women was loosely based on Louisa's childhood experiences with her three sisters, and it was published in 1868. I have reviewed a wonderful biography about Louis May Alcott which is called Beyond Little Women: A Story About Louisa May Alcott and you can also read my reviews of the four Little Women books on the Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews website


Sixty-six years after the birth of Louisa May Alcott, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland on November 29, 1898. Commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings.” According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England.” His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

In 1956, he married the American writer Joy Gresham, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45.

Lewis died three years after his wife, as the result of renal failure. His death came one week before his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal, as he died on 22 November 1963 – the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the same day another famous author, Aldous Huxley, died.

Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularized on stage, TV, radio and cinema.

Poetry Friday - A review of Soup for Breakfast

This Friday I have a review of a book that is full of poems that are unique and often deliciously funny. 

Soup for breakfast

Calef Brown

Poetry

For ages 5 to 8

Houghton Mifflin, 2008, 978-0-618-91641-2

   For most of us, breakfast foods are pancakes, waffles, toast, croissants, bagels, or cereal. We definitely don’t consider cream of broccoli soup to be a breakfast food. However, a poem in this book introduces us to someone who “is not a fan,” of traditional breakfast foods. This person starts the day with soup, and what a “morning treat it is.”

   If you think this is odd, then prepare yourself for more. This book is full of poems about deliciously strange people. For example, there is a poem about Grandpa’s mustache. Actually, his mustache is not a mustache at all, it is nose hair that has grown incredibly long. It is so long that people don’t realize what it really is.

   Further along in the book, we meet an artist who uses a very peculiar medium; he paints on toast. After priming the toast with butter, the artist uses blueberry jam to create a “beautiful sky” that is dotted with cream cheese clouds. What other foods will this artist use to complete his painting?

   In this wonderful collection of poems, Calef Brown explores the ordinary and the downright peculiar, giving his readers a unique poetical experience. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving

An interview with Andy Stanton, the creator of the Mr. Gum books

Though Mr. Gum has not yet taken America by storm, he has become something of a celebrity with young readers in the U.K. Mr. Gum was created by Andy Stanton - who was the inaugural winner of the prestigious Roald Dahl award in 2008. Sales of the Mr Gum books have now reached in excess of 870,000 copies  in Britain alone, and translation rights for Mr Gum have been sold in 27 languages around the globe. Mr Gum’s list of awards is as long as his scabby arm. To date he has won the Blue Peter Award for Most Fun Book With Pictures, the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Fantastic Book Award, and he has been nominated for the the Guardian Children’s Book Prize and the NIBBIES Children’s Book of the Year.


This is a description of the first Mr. Gum book, You're a bad man Mr. Gum!
Weird, wacky and one in a million! Mr Gum is a truly nasty old man. He's absolutely grimsters. But this book's not just about him. There's also a little girl called Polly, an evil butcher, heroes and sweets and stuff, and Jake the dog WHO MUST BE SAVED FROM TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE EVIL. 


Here is an interview with the Andy Stanton. He tells us about the latest Mr. Gum title, Mr. Gum and the secret Hideout. 

Vote for Jumpstart!

Here is a letter that I got from Jumpstart that I would like to share with you.

Dear Marya,

Our very good friends at MetLife Foundation are celebrating Thanksgiving this year by donating $500,000 as part of their “Thanksgiving Charity Score” initiative! Jumpstart has been chosen to participate as one of four charities to receive up to $175,000!

The charity that gets the most votes from the general public over the course of the initiative will get 1st place and so on through 4th place. The $500,000 will be donated as follows: 1st place: $175,000, 2nd place $125,000, 3rd and 4th places $100,000.

Help us win $175,000 by voting for us once per day through Sunday, November 28, and donating your Facebook status to Jumpstart during this week of thanks. More votes for Jumpstart means more of the $500,000 donation will support our programs nationwide, helping children in low-income neighborhoods get the quality education they deserve. We can win up to $175K, but we can only do it with your vote!

Thank you!

How to vote and donate your status:

1.) Vote every day for Jumpstart here!

2.) Donate your status on Facebook to Jumpstart! Simply copy and paste the following as your status to help spread the word to your network. Change it every day if you’d like!

I’m donating my status to Jumpstart to let my Facebook network know that early education is important to me. I voted for Jumpstart at www.metlife.com/thanksgiving to receive $175K from MetLife Foundation! I’m thankful for my education and know how critical Jumpstart’s work is with preschool children in low-income neighborhoods nationwide. Join me – vote and paste this message as your status until 11/28.

Bookish Calendar: The anniversary of Blackbeard's death

On this day in 1718-  Edward Teach, who was better known as Blackbeard - was killed. Tired of being terrorized by Blackbeard and his men, the Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, put together a party of soldiers and sailors, and he gave them the job of finding Blackbeard. This they did off the coast of North Carolina, and after a fierce battle, Blackbeard was finally killed.
   Like so many other people, I find myself drawn to stories about pirates and their adventures. Over the years I have reviewed many books about pirates, and several of them are about Blackbeard, the man who many consider to be the most famous pirate of them all. You will find my Blackbeard feature here on the TTLG website.

Poetry Friday - A review of Poems in Black and White

At this time of year in Oregon, there is an abundance of brilliant color all around. There are the yellow, gold, and red leaves on the trees, orange pumpkins that get turned into pies and soup, and glowing red, yellow, orange, and purple chrysanthemums sitting in pots. For today's Poetry Friday title, I have chosen to review a poetry collection in which the poet looks at the world through eyes that see only in black and white.

Poems in black and white

Kate Miller

Poetry Picture Book

Ages 8 to 12

Boyds Mills Press, 2007, 978-1-59078-412-9

   We live in a world that is full of color, so much color in fact that there are times when we miss noticing the amazing things around us that are black and white. Though the richness of color is missing, the sharp contrasts that you see with black and white images can be very striking and memorable.

   For this picture book, Kate Miller has created seventeen poems that look at black and white scenes or images. She begins with the black prints of a baby’s feet on a piece of white paper. There are “two tapered soles / of elfin size” on the paper that are only a few minutes old, but that are already “adventure bound.”

   We also visit Miss Fitzgibbon’s blackboard, which is covered with math problems, the names of the planets, reminders, and other notes. On the board we see the “outlines of / A blackboard memory / Preserved in molecules of chalk.”

   Then there is a portrait of “my mother’s hair,” which is “satin black / except for one small / patch of white.” As she looks at that little patch of white, she can imagine what her mother will look like when she is no longer young.

   With beautiful black and white illustrations to accompany each poem, Kate Miller gives her readers a very special poetical treat. 

The winner of the 2010 National book Award for Young People's Literature is announced

Mockingbird, written by Kathryn Erskine, is the winner of the 2010 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Here is a summary of the book from the publisher. I will be reviewing the book myself very soon

In Caitlin's world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That's the stuff Caitlin's older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon's dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger's, she doesn't know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white—the world is full of colors—messy and beautiful.

Kathryn Erskine has written a must-read gem, one of the most moving novels of the year.